A group of researchers led by Xavier Saelens and Sven Eyckerman at the VIB-UGent Center for Medical Biotechnology discovered how a protein linked to the human immune system wards off HIV-1 and herpes simplex virus-1 by assembling structures in the cell that lure in these viruses and then trap them or even take them apart. The research was spearheaded by first author George Moschonas, published in Cell Host and Microbe, and could be used to devise new strategies to combat these viruses . The innate immune system of the human body can sense and respond to viruses by producing alarm cytokines, most notably interferons.
These proteins act as an alarm system that goes off when a cell is infected by a virus, warning surrounding cells of an invasion and prompting them to activate their antiviral defenses. These defenses comprise so-called interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs) , which produce specific proteins with antiviral qualities. One example of this is the MX protein, which was discovered 60 years ago and restricts a broad range of viruses, including those that cause AIDS and herpes.
To date, researchers were unsure how the antiviral properties of the MX protein worked. However, in this new study led by Xavier Saelens and Sven Eyckerman of the VIB-UGent Center for Medical Biotechnology and in collaboration with Beate Sodeik (Hannover Medical School), Zeger Debyser (KU Leuven), Linos Vanderkerckhove (UGent) and Nico Callewaert (VIB-UGent), the secret of the MX protein's antiviral a.
